


A Task for Mervin or The Ryan Foxheart Fan Club, Castle Lockes Chapter, FanFiction contest

by espark



Category: Tales From Verania
Genre: Characters Reading Fanfiction, Fluff, M/M, Romance, The Lightning-Struck Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-29 18:45:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13933050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/espark/pseuds/espark
Summary: When Lady Tina DeSilva comes looking for Mervin, Sam has to decide what to do about the The Ryan Foxheart Fan Club, Castle Lockes Chapter, FanFiction contest.





	A Task for Mervin or The Ryan Foxheart Fan Club, Castle Lockes Chapter, FanFiction contest

Instead of working on his grimoire, Sam was staring out the window, daydreaming about Knight Commander Ryan Foxheart’s glorious hands. Hands that could wield any sword with power and speed. Hands that had written a note which Sam kept tucked safely under his pillow. Hands that might stroke down Sam’s shoulders, down his back, down to cup his ass...

Sam’s happy thoughts were rudely interrupted when he saw Lady Tina DeSilva step out of a carriage and approach the castle doors. 

Of course it was entirely possible the 16 year-old president of the Ryan Foxheart fan club was here for some banal reason, such as a court appearance or a snobbery tournament, but Sam had a gut feeling that his archenemy (well, second archenemy after Prince Justin, or maybe his third archenemy after Larkin the Dark Wizard, dammit, his worst 16 year-old enemy ever) was up to no good. He saw Peter the guard approach Tina, but Sam couldn’t hear what they said. Peter shook his head at Tina and when she stomped her foot and said something else to him, Peter shrugged and walked into the castle.

Sam dashed out of his room and went to find Peter. He saw him talking to one of the other guards.

“I know. She was real snotty about it. I told her there was no one named Mervin here, but she wouldn’t listen,” Peter was saying.

Sam pulled Peter aside, “You are absolutely right. There is no one named Mervin here. Never has been, never will be.”

Peter gave Sam a dubious look, waiting for more.

Sam added, “So, did Lady Tina say why she was looking for Mervin? Just out of curiosity.”

Peter said, “She said she had a package for him. It looked like a satchel with a bunch of parchments.”

The fanfiction contest! Sparkling unicorn dung! He had forgotten all about it. As an officer of the fan club, he was supposed to read and judge the submissions. 

He was tempted to just let Tina walk away. Screw her and the fanfic contest. The stories would all be rambling Rystin sexcapades, full of purple prose and grammar mistakes. It would be torture. On the other hand, if he flaked on judging the contest, Tina would publically turn it against Mervin. She’d pounce on any excuse to get him removed from the fan club. Fine. He would read the stories (alright, maybe just skim them). Perhaps there would be at least one that shipped HaveHeart. 

Sam said to Peter, “On second thought, can you tell her that Mervin is out sick today? You can deliver the parchments to him when he’s feeling better.”

Peter nodded, “I thought so.”

Sam waited in the hall until Peter returned and handed over a leather satchel, nearly bursting with sheafs of parchment. Sam thanked Peter and went to his room to sort through them. 

He read through the instructions. It was a double blind contest. Since both the judges and the authors were anonymous, each story had been given an identifying number and a scorecard. He had to rate each story from one to ten. No problem. Sam hunkered down to the task.

The stories were worse than he’d expected. 

The first one started out:

_Once upon a time, in Verania University, there was a student named Justin who worked at the campus bookstore. Justin loved working at the bookstore because he got to meet so many new students and help them find what they were looking for. He felt good every time he helped a new student, maybe helping them finding a book or pointing out the nearest bathroom, but Ryan was different from all the rest of the new students. As soon as the handsome, broad chested young man walked in the shop and smiled, Justin was smitten._

No. Stop. Enough. Sam dropped the parchment and wrote a big fat zero on the scorecard.

The next one started out with a nice description of Ryan’s physique, but it went downhill from there.

_Ryan swung his sword. His muscles rippled in the afternoon sun, sweat glistening of his broad pecs. His hair was lustrously thick and he had just the right amount of stubble on his strong jaw. He was wearing tight trousers that clung to his strong thighs and nice buttocks._

_When Ryan saw Prince Justin watching, mouth slightly open in awe, Ryan couldn’t help but smile. Ryan would show Justin what else he could do with his weapon._

Nope. That was enough of that. Another zero.

The next story lacked any romance, so Sam could actually finish the story. It focused on Ryan’s backstory, how he’d risen up through the ranks of the army:

_Even as teenager, squire Foxheart’s soul matched his face, beautiful and noble. Every day he trained really hard with the other squires and listened dutifully to his master and yearned with all his might to become the best knight in all Verania. Perhaps one day, he could fulfill his one true calling, to become a Knight Commander._

Not bad. That one got a five out of ten.

Sam skimmed through a half dozen more, all Rystin and all zeros. Sam consoled himself. There were only a couple left to read and then he could go back to his grimoire (or back to the pretense of working on his grimoire). He toyed with the idea of writing his own fanfic, but he had just enough sense of self to know he didn’t have the patience for it.

He picked up the next one, ready to be done already.

_Ryan Foxheart was going through his interval drills in the castle yard when the commander approached him._

_He saluted and gave Ryan his assignment. “Today, I want you to work with in southern yard setting up some defenses, defenses against magic.”_

_Ryan’s pulse quickened at the thought of magic, and a certain young wizard. Even the thought of it did strange and wonderful things to his body._

_“But I’m just a knight,” Ryan said. “I don’t know anything about magic.”_

_“That’s why you’ll be working with Sam of the Wilds. He’ll meet you there. I think between the two of you, you’ll be able to get the job done.”_

_Ryan forced himself to remain calm. Sam of Wilds! If they were going to spend the day working side by side, Ryan would have to be on his best behaviour. That young wizard was too cute for his own good._

Sam looked up from the story, the glorious, beautiful, masterpiece of a story, a HaveHeart story. Oh gods, yes! This one was getting big, fat ten on the scorecard.

Then something half remembered caught in his brain. Who had written this? Mary was the only other Sam Girl in the fan club and this didn’t look like her writing.

Could it be?

Sam dove onto his bed and pulled out the autographed note from under his pillow. There was no mistaking it, the handwriting was the same. Ryan was indeed a Sam Girl.

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't find any other fanfic in the Tales From Verania series. If you know of any, please leave me a comment and let me know.


End file.
